Vegetable Sculptures and Recipe for Texas Caviar

Odds are that right now someone somewhere is making a vegetable sculpture. What a glorious world we live in!

I happened upon this picture of a veggie lion yesterday (on urban75.org - visit them to see the rest of the pictures) and was sufficiently moved to keep browsing the internet's wide array of vegetable sculptures. Some very impressive and un-boring veggie creatures can be seen here on i-am-bored.com. Apparently, the Lambeth Country Show, an annual event in South London, features an Alternative Vegetable Sculpture Competition. Fabulous photos of some of the 2008 entries are posted here on Flickr. The big winner in 2008 was a veggie bust of Amy Winehouse.

But if you don't feel like turning your vegetables into a sculpture, you can put them to another good use by making Texas Caviar. Here's the recipe I made for my book club, courtesy of my colleague J:

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can pinto beans - drained and rinsed
1 can black eyed peas - drained and rinsed
2 cans shoepeg corn - drained
8 ounces diced pimento - drained
1 medium red onion - diced
1 cup celery - diced
1 cup green pepper - diced
1 or 2 jalapeño peppers (depending on your taste) - diced

Directions

1. Boil the sugar, vinegar, vegetable oil, water, salt and pepper; then allow to cool.
2. Combine all of the remaining ingredients.
3. Once the liquid has cooled, pour it over the mixture and refrigerate for a few hours (or overnight, which is even better).
4. Drain most of the liquid and serve with Fritos scoops or tortilla chips.

Yum!